Going out of business signs are posted last month outside the Shopko at Bay Park Square in Ashwaubenon.(Photo: Adam Wesley/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

A pair of New York investment firms are engineering the purchase of more than 75 Shopko stores and the bankrupt retailer's headquarters and will seek to lease, redevelop or sell the properties.

The properties include 25 in Wisconsin. At least 14 of those have been purchased, for a total of $67 million, records posted by the state Department of Revenue show. Prices and other information on the remaining 11 Wisconsin parcels were not publicly available Friday.

The investors also are buying Shopko and Shopko Hometown stores in 13 other states.

Involved in the acquisitions and marketing of the properties are Monarch Alternative Capital, which specializes in distressed debt, and Raider Hill Advisors, a real estate investment and advisory firm.

Monarch is the primary investor in Heartland Hill Properties — the entity that will hold the portfolio of some 5.5 million square feet of real estate. Raider Hill will oversee leasing or sale the properties, the company announced.

Heartland Hill is buying the properties from an entity created by what now is Spirit Realty Capital Inc., a Dallas-based real estate investment trust. Spirit bought more than 130 Shopko locations for $815 million in 2006 and leased them back to Shopko's owner, Sun Capital.

Shopko filed for bankruptcy protection Jan. 16 and sought to reorganize as a regional retailer with a smaller footprint. But after failing to find an investor to fund a reorganization, the company said in mid-March that it would close all of its stores and liquidate its assets. The last of the stores are expected to close in June.

The $67 million the New York investors are known to have spent on Shopko properties in Wisconsin so far includes $6.9 million for the headquarters in Ashwaubenon.

Also included in the total, records show, is $31.3 million for a single Shopko store in Racine. That recorded price is far above that of the other Wisconsin Shopko stores, which sold for $1.5 million to $5.6 million.

A Raider Hill executive declined to answer questions Friday about the purchases.

Each of the 14 Wisconsin purchases to date was made by a separate, recently registered limited liability company. All of the companies share the same New York address as Raider Hill.

Contact Rick Romell at (414) 224-2130 or rick.romell@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @RickRomell